How many people today grab a takeaway coffee cup from the local cafe to drink on the go? We don’t know, but the number must be enormous.. Most every one of the above have a plastic top that will last 100s of years. Some cafes still use plastic cups that last a similar time. Is 10 minutes of coffee worth 100s of years of trash?
These items can be seen littering our gutters and on our streets all over the place. If they were all cardboard, they would still be littered, but they would, at least, be gone in a short time.
They do not need to be made of plastic.
On the way home from the gym last week, a distance of about 1 km (1/2 mile), I counted the items of plastic litter on the curb as I walked. In that short distance I counted 63 pieces of plastic litter. Plastic drink bottles, bottle tops, candy wrappers, plastic film, polystyrene fragments etc. That seemed to be a lot to me. I guess it is a generational thing. Our parents would have been horrified to see that amount, whereas it seems to go unnoticed by our youth of today. In another 20 years how many pieces will there be on this stretch, -- 200? What will today’s youth think of that new amount then when they are older? Will their children be so readily accepting of a higher amount of litter? Europe’s circular plastics transition experiencing “dramatic slowdown”
Posted on May 20, 2026 by DrRossH in Plastic RecyclingPlastics Europe warns that exporting waste while importing recycled materials weakens Europe’s industrial base and undermines the business case for domestic recycling investment.
Source: Europe’s circular plastics transition experiencing “dramatic slowdown” – Plastics News
Europe’s shift towards a circular plastics economy is losing momentum at a “dramatic” pace amid increased global competition, according to Plastics Europe’s new report covering 2024 estimated data.
The report shows that 15.8% of Europe’s plastics production was circular (mechanically, physically and chemically recycled plastics as well as plastics derived from bio-based feedstock) in 2024, equivalent to 8.7 million tonnes. While this is higher than in 2022, Plastics Europe cautions that the increase was driven largely by a fall in fossil-based plastics production rather than a strong expansion of circular output. Fossil-based plastics production fell 8.3% to 43.3 million tonnes between 2022 and 2024.
Overall, circularity in Europe has continued to grow, but at much slower rate. Annual growth in European circular plastics production has slowed from 13.6% in 2018–2022 to just 1.2% in 2022–2024. Over the same period, global circular plastics production growth rose from 5% to 7.7%, suggesting that Europe’s early leadership is at risk of being overtaken by faster-moving regions, particularly China and the rest of Asia.
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